Researchers Investigate Vaccine-autism Link

WASHINGTON — Some people refuse to vaccinate their children. They believe an agent in vaccines is dangerous.

Lyn Redwood's son Will was a happy baby who "ate, slept well, smiled, cooed, walked and talked, all by 1 year," his mother recalls.

But shortly after his first birthday, Will unexpectedly developed several infections, stopped talking, lost eye contact and suffered intermittent bouts of diarrhea. He ultimately was diagnosed as having a form of autism, a severe neurological disorder.

A couple of years later, his mother read a report that said children who received vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, could have been exposed to more mercury than federal guidelines recommend. Since then, Redwood has been convinced that the vaccines Will received five years ago led to his autism, and that the federal government is ignoring the vaccine-autism issue.

Thousands of parents share Redwood's belief, while most of the nation's medical establishment says there is no scientific basis to believe that vaccines are responsible for autism. After a lengthy investigation, the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the highly regarded National Academy of Sciences, will issue a report Tuesday that will attempt to answer an increasingly contentious question: Is there a connection between vaccines and autism?

The report takes on special significance because the number of parents refusing to have their children follow traditional vaccination schedules is on the rise. Many think the trend has been fueled by news stories, Internet sites and word-of-mouth reports of adverse effects from vaccines, the American Medical Association said.

Meanwhile, the prevalence of autism grew at a rate of 10 percent to 17 percent a year through the 1990s, before manufacturers began removing thimerosal from pediatric vaccines, according to the Autism Society of America. Today, as many as 1.5 million Americans are believed to have some form of autism, the society says. Many parents say signs of autism began to appear shortly after their children received vaccines containing thimerosal.

While the Institute of Medicine may deliver the most complete study yet of the suspected vaccine-autism connection, it is not likely to be the last word on the issue. Many parents say they do not trust federal health agencies to tell them the truth. Meanwhile, many doctors think parents have been misled by researchers and others offering a simplistic explanation for a complex problem.

Neither side appears in a mood to concede.

SafeMinds, an organization investigating what it says are the risks caused by medical products that contain mercury, struck back quickly, for example, after the ABC News program "Primetime Live" said in a recent profile of a family with three autistic children that doctors dismiss any vaccine-autism link. "This is not only not true, but 'Primetime's' assertion flies in the face of the best current research being performed by the recognized experts in this field," said Redwood, a nurse in the Atlanta area and president of SafeMinds.

Vaccine supporters have begun to respond. The Sabin Institute, a vaccine think tank based in New Canaan, Conn., distributed a series of statements from parents testifying to the positive effects of vaccines.

In one, a Texas mother whose son was not vaccinated and died of meningitis, said she was moved to speak out "by the loss of my only son (and) to make sure all children everywhere are protected against infectious diseases."

Dr. Louis Z. Cooper, who has practiced medicine for 43 years, said, "I know how serious these diseases are. I know what good vaccines do. There is no science to suggest that thimerosal plays a role in autism." *